On Tonight's News

I’m here on the scene

With a crying black mother

If you look to your left

There’s a hoodie on the ground painted with blood

Painted with bullet holes and red stains

Painted with the tears of this mother though

He was only 17 years old

But bullets don’t know you were just walking back from the store

Bullets don’t know that you were only getting skittles and iced tea

And

All she could do was cry and cry watching her son lifeless on the ground

But not guilty was the verdict

 

On another scene

With a mother and a daughter they both just saw the brutal murder of this father

He reached in his pocket to grab the license he was asked for

Seven shots through the window

And the wife still addresses the officer as sir

“I told him to get his hand off it”

He shouted with his gun still drawn

This man isn’t even moving at this point

His body’s slumped and he’s fighting to keep his life

20 minutes later he lost that fight

A verdict not guilty was what the jury put their minds together and found

 

Outside Fairfax County

A young woman who was tormented by schizophrenia and depression is restrained for transport

They shackle her arms and legs and place a spit mask over her face

She stood at 5 foot 4 and 130 pounds

But she fell like a ton on bricks

when tasered her for four rounds

Because she wouldn’t bend her fucking knees to be put in a wheelchair

And on February 8th she was found to be brain dead

And no damn charges were even put in place

 

Today in Ferguson a 19 year old boy was gunned downed after stealing cigarillos

Officer Wilson I get that you were scared

I get that he was struggling and that's not okay

I get that he fled and that’s not okay

But one shot would’ve stunned him or even your taser

But 12 while you stared him in his eyes was just fucking evil

He turned around with his hands up and yelled “Don't shoot”

But you pulled the trigger and you let a death sentence drip from your fingers like black ink onto a clean white paper plaguing a nation

Fueling hatred and you get the excuse of what would you do?

You know what I would do Mr. Wilson if the kid surrendered and said “Don’t shoot?”

I wouldn’t have fucking shot

 

I’m interviewing this black mother

I swear its breaking news because she promises to tell us the secrets black men must use

Her words will send you back to segregation and days of slaves with baskets on their backs and picking cotton for caucasians

“Put your hands up please!”

“Don’t fight! Don’t scream!”

“You know your rights but that goes out the window if he has a badge and he’s white”

“Hands up, don’t shoot!”

I’m here to report

Another sad mother plagued by the pain of her baby never returning home again

She thought the sit ins were over but she never imagined she would sit in the morgue

Identify his body

She never thought she would stand in a court

“Has he ever done drugs” “Was he in any gangs” “Did he have his hands up”

258 black people killed in 2016 alone

Piles of young bodies buried 6 feet under the cold ground with permanent markings of gun rounds

As I interview her I wonder

Why can angel wings be clipped by the bullets locked and loaded

Ready to fire

Always drawn with an open eye but never really seeing who’s on the receiving end

 

I’m here to report the death of

Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and Natasha McKenna

I’m sorry that to most you’re just another body in the ground

I’m sorry this country is in love with sensationalism more than they are in love with the children whose ancestors carried America on their backs

Because your stories are good for a moment but

Not good enough to focus on and I am so damn sorry I play a part in that system and all I wanna say is

I’m sorry that hands up don't shoot doesn’t work when police officers use bullets as a noose

This has been Nakia Brown

I hope you enjoyed the news

 

This poem is about: 
My community
My country

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